The Young Beethoven Meret Lüthi, Sonoko Asabuki, Alexandre Foster, Leonardo Miucci

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3:
• 1 Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3: I. Allegro vivace 09:54
• 2 Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3: II. Adagio con espressione 06:15
• 3 Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3: III. Rondo. Allegro 03:39
• Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1:
• 4 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: I. Adagio assai 09:09
• 5 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: II. Allegro con spirito 08:01
• 6 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIa. Thema. Cantabile 01:11
• 7 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIb. Var. 1 01:13
• 8 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIc. Var. 2 01:07
• 9 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIId. Var. 3 02:17
• 10 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIe. Var. 4 01:18
• 11 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIf. Var. 5 01:04
• 12 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIg. Var. 6 01:03
• 13 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIh. Coda 01:20
• Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2:
• 14 Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2: I. Allegro moderato 10:46
• 15 Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2: II. Andante con moto 11:54
• 16 Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2: III. Rondo. Allegro 05:44
• Total Runtime 01:15:55

Info for The Young Beethoven

At the age of 13 Beethoven was already hailed as the new Mozart and many of his early works, especially in the chamber music genre, were influenced by Mozart’s model, like the Three Quartets for Piano and Strings WoO 36, composed in 1785 and published posthumously in November 1828. These three chamber works are directly modeled on three of the six violin sonatas that Mozart published in 1781: KV 296, 379 and 380. One of young Beethoven’s patrons was Johann Gottfried Mastiaux , whose children played violin, viola, cello and the piano. Although there is no concrete evidence for it, Beethoven’s association with the Mastiaux family could have inspired him to write for such an instrumental ensemble; it is unlikely that Beethoven was yet aware of the first example of this genre, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor, KV 478, which was finished only on 16 October 1785 in Vienna, thus not in time for Beethoven to have become acquainted with it in Bonn. Therefore, it is possible that WoO 36 – and not KV 478 – was in fact the first example of the piano quartet in chamber music literature. Despite these circumstances and the composer’s youth, the WoO 36 piano quartets represent an important artistic pinnacle in which the seeds of Beethoven’s genius that would proliferate during his maturity were already evident. This album features the first recording on historical instruments of the Piano Quartets WoO 36 (Bonn, 1785).

Meret Lüthi, violin
Sonoko Asabuki, viola
Alexandre Foster, cello
Leonardo Miucci, piano

Meret Lüthi
Die Bernerin Meret Lüthi, eine begeisternde und charismatische Geigerin, versteht es, MitmusikerInnen und Publikum musikalisch und verbal in den Bann zu ziehen. Seit 2008 prägt sie mit ihrer unverwechselbaren Handschrift als Künstlerische Leiterin, Dramaturgin und Konzertmeisterin das international agierende Orchester für Alte Musik Bern, Les Passions de l’Ame. Mit ihrem Orchester gastiert sie beim Lucerne Festival, den Tagen Alter Musik Regensburg, den Schwetzinger Festspielen oder beim Musikfest Stuttgart. Sie konzertiert mit KünstlerInnen wie Dorothee Oberlinger, Els Biesemans, Simone Kermes, Kristian Bezuidenhout oder Nuria Rial.

Meret Lüthi erhielt ihre Ausbildung in ihrer Heimatstadt bei den Geigerinnen Monika Urbaniak-Lisik und Eva Zurbrügg und erlangte Lehr- und Konzertdiplom mit Auszeichnung. Das Studium des Streichquartetts führte sie nach Basel zu Walter Levin, bei Anton Steck in Trossingen studierte sie Barockvioline.

Als gefragte Spezialistin für Alte Musik ist Meret Lüthi regelmässig bei Radio SRF 2 Kultur zu Gast und doziert an der Hochschule der Künste Bern die Fächer Barockvioline und Historisch informierte Aufführungspraxis. 2017 wurde sie für ihr langjähriges und herausragendes musikalisches Wirken mit dem Musikpreis des Kantons Bern geehrt. Ihr künstlerisches Schaffen ist bei Sony Switzerland und Ramée dokumentiert und wurde zweimalig mit dem Diapason d’or ausgezeichnet.

Leonardo Miucci
Born in Milan in 1982, Leonardo Miucci graduated in piano from Matera Conservatory in 2001, where he was a pupil of Costantino Mastroprimiano, and went on to study chamber music at Perugia Conservatory, gaining a diploma in 2003 and a master's degree in 2006. In 2005 he began his studies in fortepiano, first with Robert Levin at the Salzburg Mozarteum, then with Bart van Oort at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, obtaining a bachelor's degree in 2009 and master's in 2011. Meanwhile, he also graduated in musicology at Tor Vergata University in Rome in 2005, specializing in 18th- and 19th-century instrumental performance practice. Since 2010 he has been a researcher at the Bern Hochschule der Künste, and in 2012 embarked on a PhD at Bern University on the subject of philological and performance practice aspects of Beethoven's piano sonatas. He has recently published a critical edition of Francesco Pollini’s fortepiano treatise of 1812, and is currently engaged in recording a cycle of Hummel's piano quartet arrangements of Mozart's piano concertos, in which he plays an original fortepiano.

Booklet for The Young Beethoven